All Over the Map

Honors Physics enjoyed their Fluid Mechanics exam in class today and will start on heat and heat transfer tomorrow with some lab investigations that will focus on applying conservation of energy to the concept of heat.

Intro Physics began their unit on work and energy. We defined both work and power from the perspective of physics and looked at the formulas to calculate each. Time was taken to handle misconceptions about these topics such as any force does work on an object (have to be in plane of motion) and that two machines with different power ratings do different amounts of work (do same work, just in different amounts of time). We took a look at positive and negative work and how to calculate net work on an object. We'll tie both work and power into energy as we move through the chapter, but we'll take time to explore how work and power physically play out in daily life by examining the six simple machines, which is where we take up tomorrow.

Physics A worked on their centripetal force lab during today's long block. Folks studied the relationship between centripetal force, orbital radius and speed and should be able to link their lab results to the formula we used in class for centripetal force (F_c = (mv_t)r). We'll go over the lab tomorrow in class and look at your simple machines homework before reviewing for Wednesday's exam.

Physics B examined the six simple machines and how they manipulated force and distance to make work easier. We linked the concepts of mechanical advantage (both ideal and actual) and efficiency to machine function and used the law of conservation of energy to explain the force-distance trade off when using a machine and why machines can never exceed 100% efficiency. We'll go over tonight's homework in class tomorrow before starting our review for Wednesday's exam.